The Strange Case of the Pythagorean Murderer
by Mr. Higgs-Boson
Summary: Sherlock Holmes and Captain Jack Sparrow save spacetime from infinite chronological paradoxes.
1. The Pythagorean Enigma

Sherlock Holmes and Captain Jack Sparrow Save Spacetime from Infinite Chronological Paradoxes

I

Alone in his study, Sherlock Holmes bowed his head over his books. He felt that at last, despite the finest education and an already remarkable mind, he had exhausted his intellect. He struggled to reconcile himself with this revelation. There was no accounting for it. It was impossible that the perpetrator of these crimes could have such a peerless understanding of the universe that not even _he_ could determine its motives. As a general rule, his habitual egoism would never indulge in this kind of self criticism. But he felt humbled by the situation. These crimes puzzled him in a way that guaranteed no eventual resolution.

"Don't be daft," he said to himself. "If there's something to be known here, then you must already know what it is." He dropped his face to the crease between the pages of his book as if daring it to swallow him whole.

The rapping at the study door was predictable, but not impossible to ignore. "Mr. Holmes," shouted Mrs. Hudson. "It's time for tea. I've called you four times already."

It's the sixth time, he thought, that I'm waiting for. He continued to sit with his face in the book. What was the use of cleverness if its highest possible achievement was recognizing its own uselessness? Of course he would have liked to have been able to agree with Scotland Yard that these murders had been perpetrated by a madman and his pliable subordinates. But there was something predictable and curiously harmonious about the crimes. They were as predictable as Mrs. Hudson, whose fourth call was always accompanied by a rap on the door, the fifth by an attempt to knock it down, and finally the sixth by a successful appeal to explosives. At times he imagined himself her tutor in principles of Machiavellian governance. He supposed that eventually he would succeed in teaching her that an appeal to force was perhaps the only reliable method to extract what was necessary from an uncooperative resource.

In this instance, he realized, the uncooperative resource was his mind. Ashamed of its uselessness, it balked to address the particulars of the crimes. Once again, he recalled the naïve conclusions of the police. They supposed that Pythagoras was a madman, though they granted that he was a mastermind with an able and active body of accomplices. But Sherlock was incapable of disregarding the deliberateness of the murders. First there had been two, then four, and then sixteen—all indicating their purposeful correspondence to the ascending squares of the Pythagorean Theorem. It was evident that these deaths would precede a kind of ritualistic massacre, the deaths of 16*16. Yet he was reluctant to credit the murders to the absurd notion of a mystical brotherhood, or to the sinister and unpredictable schemes of the occult. After all, not all the victims had been easy to isolate and murder. To Sherlock, it seemed that the plan was not only mathematical, but also political.

The inscrutable figure of Pythagoras, whoever he was, had recalled an ancient fraternity only in order to mystify the public and manipulate his followers. But Sherlock doubted that Pythagoras himself had been seduced by the beautiful symmetry of numbers. His use of geometry was crude and contrived at best—as forced as the blunt, quasi-right triangles carved into the faces of the first twenty-two victims.

He could hear that Mrs. Hudson had resumed beating on the study door with one of his umbrellas, or perhaps with one of the canes that he liked to take with him on his more fashionable outings. He decided that with time—optimistically under a year—she would come to the intelligent conclusion that the use of gunpowder ought to become her first and only method to extract him from his study in time for afternoon tea. It was probably only due to his inconsistency as a teacher that she had not already come to this conclusion. In fact, most days he arrived at the living room with surprising punctuality. It was only when he felt personally challenged by a case that his study became his prison and his nightmare.

In the meantime, he would wait for the explosion to rouse him from his stupor. What could all of these triangles mean? Their allusive purpose was obvious: the villain Pythagoras hoped to connect his crimes to the legacy of the mathematician Pythagoras. But what political agenda was disguised by the pretense of mystical mathematics?

The beating on the door stopped abruptly, and the silence was foreboding. He could hear her footsteps on the first floor, and though he knew that a monosyllabic response was all that was necessary to spare the destruction of yet another door, he could not muster the courage to speak. It was much easier to resign himself to the interruption of a well-meaning intruder, but to break his own concentration would doom him to abandon it forever. He braced himself for the explosion.

A bit later.

Sherlock Holmes was not surprised to find his longsuffering associate, John H. Watson, waiting for him in the living room. The tea on the table had not yet gone cold, but Watson had awaited his arrival with enough patience to have allowed his own cup to cool. He drained it quickly and served himself another.

"Hudson says you're giving her trouble again."

"So I am," admitted Sherlock. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror above the mantle. The evidence of his obsessive behavior was much more apparent than he would have preferred.

"I can only assume it's to do with the Triangle Murders."

"The _Pythagorean_ murders, my dear Watson. It's tragically unprofessional that you've resorted to the layman's term so early in the case. At least in a month or two you'd have the press to blame," said Sherlock.

"Well in any case, you know how I feel about it. But just because you're onto something doesn't mean you have any personal investment in the comings and goings of this killer. Besides, it's all prostitutes and drunkards is all."

"That's a hideous misconception, Watson. Two politicians and a lord among those killed—that's a farther reach than your mere Jack-the-Ripper, not including his unique interest in numbers."

"That's fine then. But you still ought to look after yourself." Watson straightened his collar as he spoke, and Holmes recognized the cue to adjust his own cravat, which he had loosened immodestly over the course of the previous evening. "As I was saying," continued Watson, "you have no personal investment in the outcome of the case. And meanwhile, I've come to tell you that The Landlord's Daughter sank on its way from Bermuda. The investors are in a fix, and that puts you and me among them, friend."

"The Landlord's Daughter? Was that its name? Well, it's nothing we can't recover from. Ships are always coming and going and sinking and rising again. Where Bermuda's concerned, it's the norm."

"You'll find it's not as easy as all that. But frankly, I'm not surprised you find the news so unmoving. When you get like this, really, where does your mind go?"

"Higher places, Watson, than many have ever traversed. And anyway, I was hoping you would accompany me to the mortuary today. I'm graphing the subtle divergence in the dimensions of these triangles. With luck, there'll be a method to it."

"Who's the latest stiff?"

"The second of the politicians to which I was just referring," said Holmes. He withdrew a measuring stick from his vest pocket and compulsively began to measure the items of the tea service. "As far as I've yet to determine, he was the most inaccessible of those killed by the so-called 'brotherhood'."

"And I suppose you believe this detail will narrow your list of suspects?"

"Considerably, though not enough. Murder is a nasty business; and when the motives are so chillingly absent, you can imagine where that leaves the detective."

Watson watched him for a few moments, smirking at the pedantic fastidiousness of the measuring process. But before long, he reached to take the measuring stick from his hand. Holmes relinquished it with the humble compliance of a naughty schoolboy, not unwilling to recognize his lamentable tendency to fidget and obsess. He rested his elbow beside his teacup and seated his chin on his fist (his foot tapped nervously below the table). The mantle clock continued to tick. It was only a matter of time before Pythagoras would execute the mass murder to which these twenty-two killings would serve as a mere prelude; and if all he could do was ponder endless questions, measuring triangles carved onto the foreheads of cadavers, there would be no one else to intervene.


	2. Grave Revelations

II

As usual, the mortuary was still and silent. Even the technician stared at Holmes and Watson through dark, inanimate eyes. He spoke sparingly as he led them to the latest victim. The body was swollen and stiff, but the cool of the underground corridors quelled its natural stench. Holmes proceeded to measure the sides of the triangle and the degrees of each of its angles.

"A little more acute than the one before it," he said.

"Well it's not exactly a precise art, Holmes," Watson muttered. With his eyes narrowed, he glanced over his shoulder to the corner of the room where the young man still stood watching them. "If it were up to me, I'd tell you to look for clues elsewhere."

Sherlock Holmes was beginning to feel the unmistakable sensation of defeat. It was one thing to predict a massacre, but it was another thing entirely to be able to prevent it. Prediction, after all, was only concerned with the elementary matter of identifying a pattern. But prevention required insight. Not even the confirmation of his most recent suspicions provided him with the critical evidence necessary to draw a useful conclusion.

"I'm at least able to deduce from this that the triangles were carved by the same individual, though with different instruments. According to my experiments, the aberrations demonstrated in these twenty-two cases indicate one individual and multiple knives, and not many individuals with many knives, or even one knife and many individuals. In some instances, believe it or not, the instrument was not even a knife at all, though in this particular case it most certainly was."

"How incredibly meaningful this discovery must seem to you, Holmes. But I regret that I must tell you that it brings you no closer to an explanation for all of this hocus-pocus and witchery."

"That it does not, my dear Watson." Holmes lifted his hand to his chin where he left it to rest indefinitely. "But it does suggest to us that although Pythagoras cannot be working alone to kill all of these men, he must nevertheless have come into contact with each of the bodies in order to mark them, or to sign them, if you will."

"Remarkable."

"Elementary," said Holmes. "It does, however, present us with a delicious temporal puzzle. As the police and their charming, if rudimentary, techniques have already assured us, these murders occurred in three graduated shifts, the vast majority of them simultaneously."

"This is true."

"But if Pythagoras himself must have been present for each of the murders, many of which took place in three distinct locations in London, our man has a special talent for accelerated spatial travel. And if not spatial, then temporal."

Watson uncrossed his arms long enough to signal to the technician that he return the body to its locker. He seized Holmes by his forearm and began to guide him from the morgue, shaking his head in disbelief as they crossed the unlit corridors and ascended the staircase toward daylight and the street outside.

"Time travel? Has it perhaps occurred to you, Holmes," he said, "that you put far too much faith in your wild experiments, and far too little in nature?"

"As my experiments are themselves a part of nature, I would never presume to suggest that these superficial contradictions are indicative of separate realities."

"Well, have you at least considered the possibility that you're mistaken with everything you say about these so-called 'aberrations'? As far as I see it, your Pythagoras gave his minions a quick lesson in the carving of more-or-less right triangles, and what you see here is his students' work. There are too many variables to support your conclusion, Holmes. You're grasping at straws and talking like a madman."

Sherlock Holmes squeezed his eyes shut as he and Watson stepped onto the bright street outside the entrance to the mortuary. He felt that Watson was deliberately provoking him to reveal everything he knew, and not only the sane and abbreviated summary of his findings. After all, if Watson were privy to the detailed facts of the matter, there was no way he would be able to suggest that the subtle variation in the dimensions of the triangles was the work of the students of Pythagoras. Yet he knew that to suggest the true nature of his findings would only further call into question his sanity. Watson had already invoked the word "madman" once. It frightened Holmes to even consider the possibility that he was right.

But how else could he explain it? With the numerical data available to him, he had constructed numerous charts and graphs, switching each time the function of "x." First, it was the time of death with respect to the angles (but the mortuary sciences were too imprecise to allow for this); second, he had considered the relationship between the profession of the victims and the length of the hypotenuse (this too had yielded only gibberish); the third and fourth attempts had had similarly outlandish relationships with one another. But finally, he had related the length of the hypotenuse to the near perfectness of the right angle. In no case was it ever truly ninety-degrees. Instead, with an apparent purposefulness, it had danced below and above ninety, never quite striking perfection. When he had charted the twenty-one triangles, having just recently graphed the twenty-second in his mind, the purpose of these purely numerical aberrations had become alarmingly evident.

There on the graph, if he indulged himself in the trivial delight of connecting the twenty points with one another, there was no mistaking that he was able to spell two cursive letters: S.H. Sherlock Holmes. Of course he had been reluctant to believe it at first. The data must have been corrupted by his obsessive behavior; the results proved only the subconscious emergence of the ego, impressing itself arbitrarily on what ought to have remained scientific and factual. It was impossible that an accurate reading of the findings would push him toward this absurd conclusion—that this villain, Pythagoras, was calling him by name, provoking his intellect and challenging his investigative faculties with this murderous riddle serving as the signed invitation.

"Holmes?" asked Watson. He squeezed his shoulder to get his attention. "Holmes, there's something I'd like you to do for me."

"Anything, my dear Watson," said Sherlock distractedly.

"Well, as you're working this riddle out in your head, if you'd only lend me your body long enough to place you in a seat at the latest investors' meeting, I'd be much obliged to you."

"Investors' meeting?" said Holmes. "Tell me you're not still going on about the sinking of that ship."

"The Landlord's Daughter, Holmes. And yes, I am still going on about it. You and I both stand to lose a lot in this venture, and forgive my materialism if I express the slightest concern over the loss of such a vast portion of my assets."

Holmes struggled to concentrate, but the noise on the street robbed him of his focus. This final point confirmed the intricacy of the carvings. Had it been entirely incompatible with the others, he would have been willing to doubt his original suspicions. But this proved it to him. Pythagoras knew who he was; he wanted him to look deeper, to see the scheme as it had guided his actions in the past, and to anticipate its progress in the future.

"The idea, Holmes, is to finance a salvaging expedition. Obviously it's a gamble, but with so much at stake, it's worth the risk. I'd appreciate having you there. You're a respected game theorist, though I'm sure you're already too well aware of it. One encouraging word from you and the matter is settled. If only you'd cooperate, we might stand to gain a little after all. I imagine quite a few of the investors will withdraw in spite of you, and what that means is that one tiny salvaging expedition might guarantee us the lion's share of the remaining profit to be had. I don't have your reputation, Holmes—I'm not eccentric enough to be famous—but I've worked it all out myself, and there's really no going wrong."

"So you want me to convince the investors, but not convince them so well that I convince all of them?"

"Essentially, yes," said Watson. "That is the plan."

"Very well," he said, "And approximately how many investors ought I direct into each of the categories for you?"

"Don't make a joke of this," warned Watson. "These are serious people, so please put on your serious face."

"Anything you say.

"They've contracted an exceptional captain to oversee the voyage to Bermuda—a Captain Sparrow, if I'm not mistaken. His very involvement in the venture ought to inspire confidence, and your cooperation is really all I'm asking."

"A 'Captain Sparrow'? You're serious?" asked Holmes.

"Supposedly as eccentric as you."

Sherlock Holmes nodded wordlessly. He resumed considering the riddle Pythagoras had designed for him. What could these triangles mean? Where would they lead him? But he would have to resolve this matter later; and in the meantime, he would pacify Watson's tiresome economical preoccupations long enough to guarantee his future collaboration in the case.


	3. 234 Years Earlier

III

234 years earlier

The wind in the sails of the ship blew in unsteady gusts. He could hear it beating against the black canvas and sensed that the wind was annoyed with the arbitrary man-made obstruction. The deck of the _Pearl _creaked below his feet as he walked toward the prow. The sea was still and flat. Overhead, the sun threatened to rise even nearer the meridian. It was not yet noon, but for weeks they had been slipping lower and lower on the face of the earth until at last they found themselves in the equatorial horse doldrums.

"Gibbs!" he shouted, swaying from side to side with the ship. "Gibbs!"

His arms were brown and creased to the elbow, and the dark hairs on his wrists had been bleached by the sunlight. His eyelashes and eyebrows were thick and black; and his long hair, knotted by the wind and conditioned by the salt of seawater, fell in dark, swirling braids past his shoulder blades. His eyelids were heavy and dark, and not even the sharp, shrewd quality of his aquiline nose and mouth could give the impression of alertness. His eyes were too clouded and unfocused, and beneath their heavy lids, they looked perpetually lulled to sleep or stupor.

"Gibbs!" he shouted again. He balanced his body against the starboard side of the vessel, and it occurred to him that he was drunk. "Where are we? Gibbs! Where are we?"

The deck was empty apart from a few idle, drunken members of the crew. Jack wondered what had happened to them, though he was clever enough to realize that they must have been feeling something similar to his sailor's vertigo. The sun was too hot and there was no more fresh water. The water in the barrels below deck was tepid and foul. Soon, they would have to find land.

"Gibbs! Why is the sun so high?" he asked. "How did we get here?"

Idly, he lifted his closed fist to the horizon and counted from sea level to the sun in the sky. At this point in the year, halfway through the season, he imagined that the celestial equator and the ecliptic must intersect with one another. The sun was nearly ninety degrees above the horizon. There was no mistaking it: they were in the equatorial doldrums, rocking to and fro over still, listless waters. The wind belched into the sails in erratic gusts that were useless and teasing. They were at the mercy of the tides.

Gibbs poked his head from below deck. His round face tipped side to side in time with the rocking of the ship, like a pink, furry ball rolling back and forth. Jack walked toward him, squinting his eyes to distinguish the expression on his sunburned face. Gibbs looked frightened and noticeably hesitated before speaking.

"We might try to land in Bermuda," he said. "But it'll take at least a week with wind like this."

"Maybe we'll catch a ship," said Jack. "We're not really pirates without ships to ransack, are we? But then I s'pose we've at least got rum to drink. We can count ourselves one half pirate—the other half, our latent piracy."

His indifference to the news was deliberate, but thirst and starvation were not truly disconcerting, nor was death. Mutiny, more than either of those things, was most upsetting. He had died before, and he had thirsted and hungered. But worse still, he had once been mutinied, and it was mutiny that he feared more than anything else. He gripped the side of the ship, willing himself a part of her. They would reach Bermuda in a matter of days, and from there matters would improve.

The sea spread out indefinitely in each of the cardinal directions. It was flat and uncooperative, and he resented the weak wind, the hesitant way it teased the sails of the Pearl. He drew his left hand close to his face to protect his eyes from the formidable glare of the equatorial sunlight. The weight of his head burdened the rest of his body and he dropped down to the deck to rest in the short, precious shade of the mast. In less than a moment, he was asleep.

_Not long afterward_

When Jack awoke, the crew was gone. He imagined they must have fled below deck to shelter themselves from the sudden, decisive change in the weather. On a windless day, the sky achingly barren from east to west, a storm ought to have been easy to predict. In fact, it ought to have been unthinkable. The weather would have lingered days and days without arriving. Clouds, like sails, relied on wind to give them momentum. Yet now there was nothing he could see apart from the clouds. They were dark overhead, and in the west they were ripe and red with the setting sun behind them.

Fat raindrops pooled at the edges of the ship where the deck met the hull. Jack clasped his hands and caught the water as it poured down in heavy sheets. He opened his mouth skyward and took great, big gulps of rain.

The strange wind, which ought not to have existed at all, rocked the ship to and fro with upsetting violence. Everything seemed strangely and frighteningly out of place—most remarkably, he noted, the great, swirling vortex forming in the rain clouds overhead. It took the distinct shape of a funnel, and the hiss of the rainwater attracted by its alien gravity grew louder and louder as it approached the _Pearl._

He dropped to his knees, squinting at the dark and powerful cloud. Its phalanx shape and its unnatural flexibility astounded him. He felt hypnotized by its ponderous dimensions, the way it seemed to unfold the closer it came to him, exposing little by little the true nature of its awesome enormity. Flashes of lightning, which had at first appeared only as innocuous electrical discharges, on closer inspection contained images of a strange, unforeseen reality—a future, and perhaps _the_ future. He studied them with the drunken, idle indifference of a pirate's detached fascination. When at last the tip of the funnel reached him, he had already slipped into a kind of nonsensical delirium, supposing himself in a dark tunnel guided by a distant white light.

When suddenly he snapped back to attention, he noticed the face of a stern man dressed in a strange, futuristic conception of a deerstalker and morning coat. Without quite considering why, he felt a great deal of pity for this alarmingly mundane individual, stifled by an evident respect for taste and propriety. He smoked tobacco from a pipe in an obvious appeal to the refined dignity of the aristocracy, and his hair was neatly combed in such a way that was so precise it was nearly sinister.

"Welcome to the future, Mr. Sparrow," he said, though Jack neither saw nor felt aware of being anyplace at all, and least of all the future. He noticed that the gentleman had extended one dreadfully white, manicured hand toward him, and he took it reluctantly, as if uncertain whether or not it was the shrewdest and most advantageous thing to do. The time-traveler smiled and soon afterward introduced himself: "This is _The Landlord's Daugther_, Jack. And my name is Pythagoras."


	4. The Investors' Meeting

IV

Sherlock Holmes found that the tense quiet of the assembly hall made it more difficult to concentrate than the chaotic streets he had recently traveled in the company of his associate, John Watson. He marveled at the pursed lips and furrowed brows of the frustrated businessmen. In fact, he was certain that never before in his life had he seen so many identical expressions of worry and concentration.

Watson's, apparently, was no exception. The creases in his forehead were so unusually pronounced that Holmes supposed they gave his face the odd, uneven texture of a corrugated rooftop. Himself, he felt no real dissatisfaction with the loss of the ship or, more importantly, its valuable cargo. Perhaps were he not fortunate enough to enjoy the generosity of numerous anonymous benefactors, he might share some of their concern. But this was not the case; and even if it were, he decided, he would not be bothered by something as natural and ordinary as a shipwreck. Accidents of the natural variety happened every day. Nature and fate combined to instigate them. There was no real culprit, or—in any case—the culprit was a blind and guiltless one: water, wind, gravity, buoyancy, et cetera. Who could blame the sea for sinking ships?

Watson looked at him pointedly, which he recognized as his cue to speak. He stood up to address the assembly, flinching involuntarily as all the distressed faces turned toward him. "Well, sirs," he began, "I do feel rather like Moses would have felt in this moment." He chuckled, though Watson only shook his head in silent, if unsurprised, disapproval. "Might you all be looking to me for your deliverance? Do you suppose—and you should suppose, and I believe the cleverest among you have indeed _already_supposed—that I have a plan? Well sirs, I do. Believe me I do. I not only have it, sirs; I have even _written it down_. And naturally I disclosed its contents to my good friend, Mr. John H. Watson, who will recite it to you presently." He promptly returned to his seat, grinning with an unbearable smugness, and watched as Watson fretted with the buttons of his coat, his expression blank and petrified.

"I—you see, I've made—or, rather, Mr. _Holmes_ has made a few—er—a few cursory calculations, to the effect that…that—." His honest unpreparedness was delightful.

"Do speak up, Watson," called Sherlock from his seat.

"Well the figures suggest, gentlemen, that it would be in our best interest to finance an additional expedition—a salvaging expedition—to recover the lost goods in Bermuda. The plans are already underway. A sizable faction of investors has already contracted a crew of sailors," he bluffed, "and now the one remaining question—which is not the decisive question, but is nevertheless a relevant one—is who among you believes that he stands to profit from this voyage?"

Sherlock stood up quickly and joined Watson in the nave. He noted his companion's flushed face and uncertain expression, and he congratulated himself for the successful implementation of a plan he had assembled only extemporaneously. Surely only a handful of investors would participate; the appeal was convincing, but not quite convincing enough.

"Yes, gentlemen," said Sherlock, "Mr. Watson is right. I would stake my reputation as a respected game theorist"—he smirked at Watson—"on the success of this voyage."

Sherlock directed the subsequent gaggle of questions to Watson and, meanwhile, allowed his thoughts to wander. Already he had discovered an odd coincidence from which his mind could not fully withdraw. He clung to it, desperate for another clue. These murders had become so personal that no territory of his life was exempt from investigation; no coincidence, however removed, could pass unremarked upon and unexamined.

This coincidence, surely, was a telling one. _Bermuda_—the Bermuda what?—somewhere faint in his consciousness, he felt a keen awareness of a connection that had not yet been forged, of a future revelation that had not yet reached him. He considered the geography, the mystery, and the notoriety of the region; what set it apart? Where was its apex, its boundary? He imagined a globe populated with earth's continents; these were familiar to him: the shapes of the landmasses, the coastlines, the sprawling Atlantic. He fought to perceive something utterly incomprehensible, something dream-like and formless; and then he replaced these dreams with numbers, with coordinates, and followed one set to the other with a logic that utilized newspaper clippings and vague recollections of anecdotes, disasters, and disreputable histories. This place that drove men crazy, that provoked nature, incurred her wrath—what was it? What defined it?

He gasped, and quite a few men paused to stare at him, their expressions nervous and hesitant. They waited for him to speak or to correct them, assuming that his peculiar outburst foretold criticism or disapproval. But he said only, "A triangle!" and stood up, pinching the bridge of his nose and pacing along the aisle. "A triangle!" he declared.

In a moment, Watson was at his side. He reached for his arm to still him, but the pacing continued unabated. "Holmes," said Watson, "Holmes, please stop murmuring. Stop. Stop moving, Holmes. _Stop_ _it_—you're carrying on like a _madman_."

And just as suddenly as he had begun, Sherlock Holmes stopped and stood perfectly still. This paroxysm of enlightenment—an epiphany, a restoration of reason to remedy his confusion and frustration—passed through him in an instant, and left him bewildered, frightened and defeated.

"Watson," he said, his eyes unfocused and shadowed with dread. "Watson, I believe I _am_ a madman."

There was an audible stirring in the assembly hall. Men who had overheard turned toward those who hadn't, and the volume of the whispering rose exponentially, until before long someone shouted, "He's mad! Forget it, you fools. He's mad!" There was laughter, half-hearted protest, heads shaking, lips once again pursed, foreheads furrowed ("He's mad", "he's mad", "he's mad"); Watson's eyes had swelled to the size of dinner plates; his mouth hung open in disbelief. He watched as the investors rose from their seats, clamored toward the exits, spoke of "cutting losses" and "selling shares."

"You have so much to gain," he insisted. "You have so much! Just wait—just look at the figures—just—". But it was quite obviously of no use. The room emptied. He seated himself beside Sherlock, his head buried in his hands, hair mussed and face void of expression.

"Do you think," said Watson, "that you can explain yourself, Holmes? Because I would very much like that. I really would."


	5. Visions of the Anglophone Empire

V

There was certainly no question that something paranormal was afoot. Jack Sparrow doffed his hat and inclined his head toward the time traveler, smiling uncertainly. The dark clouds overhead had already begun to subside, and persistent beams of sunlight illuminated the face of the mysterious man before him, as well as the broad, expansive deck of The Landlord's Daughter.

He could hear a terrifying noise below his feet, as if a mysterious submarine monster were gnawing at the lower quarters of the ship. Even the strange metal planks of the deck had begun to quiver, and Jack ran to the port side to see how grave the situation had become in the few minutes it had taken him to orient himself.

He staggered back from the edge of the ship, having just realized her great height over the surface of the ocean. The Landlord's Daughter was enormous, without sails, and encased by an alarming abundance of iron. The construction of this ship must have cost the blacksmiths' guild one hundred years of labor, stripped the nation of all of its metals, and bankrupted entire governments in the colonies. He felt dwarfed by her streamlined enormity and he was baffled by this futuristic engineering. Needless to say, he was equally puzzled by the time traveler's apparent lack of concern with regard to the deafening noise below their feet.

"Do you hear that?" he asked, gesturing wildly toward the shivering metal planks underfoot. "Sounds bad, don't you think?"

The time traveler bore his teeth, which were small and handsome, and his lips stretched into a languid, surprisingly gentle smile. "Those, Mr. Sparrow, are the steam engines. As I mentioned only a few minutes ago, this is the future. This is the future of England and the future of the entire world, and you, sir, are going to play an integral role in its furtherance."

"Just a minute," said Jack. He raised one finger high in the air and sauntered toward the time traveler, narrowing his heavy-lidded gaze. "You say I'm going to play an integral what in the what? You see, I'm asking this only because I distinctly recall…nothing."

"This is the future, Jack Sparrow—"

Jack cleared his throat conspicuously. "_Captain_…"

"—and you have the good fortune to bear witness to it. In this sense, sir, you owe me a great debt, which you will repay in time."

"Well, now that you say so, these negotiations feel a little—let's say—one-sided. So I suggest we remedy the situation by returning to the past, _presently_, to the Pearl, _specifically_, to discuss the future, preemptively. Temporally-speaking, this strikes me as the most sensible solution, since discussing the future in the future with someone from the past is a little quixotic. That's to say…it's not the most logical chronological method."

The time traveler once again bore his square, white teeth, and Jack marveled at their symmetry. Most remarkable of all, however, was that he appeared to have all of them consecutively, and all of them just the same color and size. He was so enthralled by the sight of this unusual set of teeth that he only nodded distractedly as the time traveler proceeded to regale him with a series of scientific facts, the lot of which suggested that he, Jack, was in fact an anomaly in space and time, and that, as such, his very existence was fragile and vulnerable, balanced precariously along the hypothetical isthmus linking being and nonbeing, matter and non-matter.

"Do as I say, Mr. Sparrow, and you will continue to exist. Disobey me and—"

"—and burst into filthy black pirate-flames—sure, sure; you've got me. It's a deal."

In the so-called silence between them—the roar of the steam engines notwithstanding—Jack sighed in resignation to the tenuousness of his circumstances. Essentially, he had been kidnapped. In a laudable and characteristic burst of optimism, however, he concluded that this was actually substantially better than being mutinied. He hoped that at the appropriate time, he might request that Pythagoras resituate him on the universal time-line at a point in which he was in control of the Pearl, sailing in nice weather, with the hull heavily-laden with cases and cases of rum.

"First," said Pythagoras, "before the detonations, Mr. Sparrow, allow me to give you a tour of the ship."

Jack said that he was much obliged (indeed, he was), and followed the time traveler below deck. The paranormal was not unfamiliar to Jack, but the future presented an entirely different matter, where the paranormal had suddenly been replaced with the mechanical. He saw the piles of coal, the shirtless men with shovels feeding the hungry, tireless engines; he listened to an explanation of the mechanics, his mind balking at the strangeness and magnitude of the innovation surrounding him.

"Wonders which, in your century, Mr. Sparrow, were considered magical, are, in this century, technological. The earth is a great and versatile machine, abundant in resources and limitless in power; it is only in this century that man has begun to learn to access her potential. This is not merely the Industrial Revolution, Mr. Sparrow; this is the prelude to a new Renaissance." The time traveler's sparing gestures had escalated in accordance with the grandiosity of his speech; his arms spread out before him, swooping and dropping in great, extravagant motions. "You recall an England much humbler than this England—an England with scattered colonies, religious fanatics, a feeble and unstable monarchy…This England, Mr. Sparrow, is an empire as vast as the earth herself. Imagine how quickly she will grow, abetted by greater and stronger machines. The 2oth century will see a world united, a single alliance of all humankind, and we will be English-speaking and more formidable, more majestic and more capable than ever."

Jack nodded, nonplussed. The time traveler calmed himself and began to explain Jack's role in the acquisition of this utopian Anglophone future.

"Right now, unfortunately, global development is inconsistent. Colonialism has done a great deal to advance global infrastructure, but progress is hindered by"—he smirked—"certain cultural curiosities, which express themselves negatively at the most inopportune moments in history. These revolutions you haven't heard of yet—impracticable insurgences, local resistances, absurd instances of nationalism—these hindrances will eclipse our glorious goal, which is the reunification of humankind under one single governance, with one single language and one common culture. They are mere distractions, born of the inequalities I am seeking to correct. Imagine humankind in its most primitive state: fragile, but unified, members of the same tribe, with everything in common and everything to gain. Now imagine my vision for humanity: one people, united, just as they began. Imagine if we could eliminate the inequalities imposed by the millennia of our subordination to nature—imposed by geography—we can correct for this! Nature is a machine and we are her operators, Jack—you and I, we are the captains of this vessel."

"You don't say."

"You must show me the way, Jack. You are the only one who knows how to take me there. You've taken me before, and now I have seen the fourth dimension and I am able to exist in it with the same dexterity as in the three with which every being is innately familiar."

"To which dimension, Mr. Pythagoras, might you be referring?"

"Well to time of course! All tangible things have extension in four directions—three in space and a fourth in time—and while we may perceive and manipulate the spatial dimensions, we cannot yet manipulate the temporal. You will be the one to introduce me to it."

"How strange," said Jack, "when it seems that it was you who brought me to the future—without my consent—and are now asking that I acquaint you with it?"

"Not me as I am now, Jack; rather, me as I _was_. I will set everything in motion; in fact, I am already doing so as we speak. You need only do what the situation calls for, and together we will experience history as we are experiencing the present, and the future will be as evident to us as the past."

Jack scratched his chin thoughtfully. He nodded to disguise the unfortunate fact that he was still confused. He worried that Pythagoras had overestimated his capacity for navigating the paranormal. He had gone to the end of the world and back, but never once had he encountered the fourth dimension. Navigating it would be only as challenging as finding it in the first place.

"Now, as for the explosions, we'd best make ourselves scarce," advised Pythagoras. He seized Jack in his arms and summoned yet another vortex of flashing light and swirling cumulonimbus clouds. Below his feet, he watched as four massive explosions decimated The Landlord's Daughter. Small, panicked specks—the crew, he realized—raced back and forth across the deck, which had begun to split into three distinct sections. He watched as her fantastic iron hull convulsed and steadied, and then began to sink into the depths of the Bermuda Triangle.


	6. Euler and Hypatia

VI

There was a certain uncomfortable smell that permeated the stagnant air above the Thames. Sherlock Holmes lifted his hand to his nose and left it to linger there, its permanent scent of dry ink mingling with the familiar, putrid odors of fish and people. He had never before felt so bourgeois as in this swarm of dour-faced fishmongers and sailors, loose women, and dirty children playing with one another underfoot. Alarmed by the stark, Dickensonian realities of London, he squinted his eyes through the crowd and occupied himself with the identification of the curiously triangular gaps that consistently appeared among the members of the unwitting crowd. Between bodies and necks, elbows akimbo, the ever-morphing angles between two feet and two legs over the cobblestone streets…These things drew his attention, and he obsessed over the inexplicable prevalence of that particular shape in all of nature. What possible secret could the triangle guard? Those three sides and three angles binding up a comprehensive understanding of nature and reality—how could one solve such an abstract puzzle?

Watson, walking by his side, appeared equally burdened with thought. His forehead had resumed the bizarre corrugated texture of the previous afternoon; in fact, it seemed ever more likely that his expression of intense concentration was destined to become permanent. They had packed their things earlier that morning and had scheduled to meet with the coach at the ninth carrel of the port, not far from the boarding house where the contracted crew was awaiting their arrival. Watson cleared his throat abruptly and shook his head as if to rouse himself from an unwelcome distraction.

"Cheer up," said Holmes.

"This is so foolish. We could die."

"It's an adventure."

"You're mad…You really are mad, Holmes. How can you think this expedition has anything to do with your mystery? Do you realize we're going to the other half of the world, Holmes? These murders—they've all occurred in _London_."

"I've already told you," he said. "I'm accompanying you because I owe it to you. I have a conscience, Watson. It aches for you."

"You're lying," said Watson. He shook his head again, his bloodshot eyes rimmed with swollen pink skin for lack of sleep or worse. It was dreadful to look at him. "The truth is that you've truly lost your mind."

"And if I _have_ lost my mind," said Sherlock pleasantly, "how strange that you're the one who looks it! I'm a lucky lunatic indeed to have a friend who'll absorb the ghastly physical consequences of my misadventures. I ought to lock you in my attic and exploit this paranormal coincidence—"

A pale, foppish-looking Irishman with long dark hair paused and squinted at them. He lifted a small notebook from the inside pocket of his morning coat and began to scribble furiously.

"Did you see that man?"

"Strange," said Watson. He tugged at his cravat and began to walk even faster than before.

When they arrived at the ninth carrel, they were greeted by an aristocratic gentleman seated over a modest black chest. He held a cane in his hand and wore a top hat. The buttons of his coat had recently been polished, and his shoes also gleamed in the faint sunlight of the early morning. His manner of dressing was incredibly antiquated, but the combination of his aged, patrician features and his admirable bearing allowed him an incomparable air of distinction. He rose to shake Watson's hand and waited with a defunct sense of propriety to be introduced to Holmes.

The change in Watson's countenance was fantastic. His face relaxed and the pinched ridges on his forehead vanished entirely apart from the faint lines that only hinted at their former stark pronunciation. He smiled, allowing for the rare exposure of his gleaming white teeth, and Holmes was startled by the sincerity of the expression (certainly he'd never managed to provoke Watson's elusive smiles; he'd forgotten he'd had teeth at all). The red, bulging eyes relaxed noticeably and in fact had never seemed bluer than when circled by so much pink. Holmes glanced from Watson to the old man and struggled to identify the favorable variables at work in their pairing.

"Holmes," said Watson, "this is Mr. Francis Euler—the only other investor, besides myself, with any interest in this spectacular voyage—"

"Is not Mr. Holmes himself an investor in zhis—vhat you say?—spectacular voyage?" interrupted Mr. Euler, betraying at once that he had not yet achieved much of an acquaintanceship with the peculiar cadences of the English language. He was almost certainly German.

"Well, nominally yes," said Watson. He continued hurriedly, "Mr. Euler is an intriguing character, and like you, he feels an obligation to participate first-hand in the recovery of the lost cargo of _The Landlord's Daughter_."

"Vhat delightful euphemisms!" laughed Euler, tapping his cane against the street in time with the hiccough-like convulsions of his diaphragm. "Zee English—you are notoriously duplicitous users of language, aren't you all? Zee vord Mr. Vatson is circumventing, Mr. Holmes, is 'exzentrisch'. I'm an excentrisch old man vit a tardy desire to see zee vorld and travel zee sea!"

"Commendable," said Holmes distractedly. He felt no genuine interest in this strange old man, though it was certain that he must have a great deal of money invested in the voyage. There was no other explanation for Watson's gratuitous courtesy.

"Zis crew?" asked Euler. "Vhen can vee anticipate zeir arrival?"

Watson's colorful effusions quickly lost Holmes' attention. He began once again to examine the gaps between bodies, following lines and identifying angles. Every moment, the tessellating shapes changed their particular configuration, and he continued to identify the ever evolving patterns. At last his eyes settled over the sharp triangles framing a narrow, corseted waist. There was a remarkable symmetry to the space surrounding such a feminine body, and he followed the lines from the waist to the hem of the dress. With every footstep, pointed little shoes darted out over the cobblestones and then disappeared again beneath the hem. He studied the changing lines, each angle a novel one, until suddenly he realized that the body was approaching him. More compelling even than the space surrounding it was the space that it occupied; he glanced up from her waist and saw at once that she was a beautiful girl, perhaps eighteen years old, with bright eyes and a hesitant smile playing at the corners of her lips.

"Gentleman," declared Euler, tapping his cane again over the street. "Allow me to introduce to you my daughter, Hypatia."

At last the riddle of Watson's absurd behavior had resolved itself. The young woman seated herself beside her father and nodded politely at her new acquaintances. She took Euler's hand in her own with a dutiful smile, and repeated—in excellent English—his question regarding the missing crew.

Watson, flushed, recalled the explanation he had just delivered; but he had no sooner begun to speak than they were joined by a man who, much more than Euler, could be described only as eccentric. His skin was so dark that there was no supposing his race or origins, though there was something decisively angloid about his aquiline features; and his hair, which was short, appeared to have been cut with blunt sheep shears. The skin at the back of his neck was smooth and white, and Holmes deduced that he had only recently cropped his hair, which had hitherto protected the only recognizably English feature of his swarthy complexion.

"Mr. Sparrow!" exclaimed Watson. "Mr. Euler, Mr. Holmes, this is Captain John Sparrow. He'll be directing this salvaging expedition. He's come highly recommended to us, and I assure each of you that we're in very good hands."

Sparrow, smiling, nodded. His eyes conveyed a singular blankness, and Holmes was disturbed by their misty, vague quality. They gave no impression of intelligence; but likewise, no inkling of duplicity. He had never seem such a queer, misplaced person, and he was further disturbed by the inordinate attention Sparrow's soulless eyes appeared to direct toward Euler. It would have suggested some manner of conspiracy were it not for the irreconcilability of the two figures, though he soon realized that it was probably the young Hypatia whom Sparrow was admiring, not her father.

Sparrow's manner of speaking was vulgar and harsh. But for his sophisticated diction, there would have been no profit listening to him. As it was, the irony was not lost on Holmes, and he quite liked the eccentric sailor who directed them toward the modest steamboat that would bear them to Bermuda.

Without much difficulty, they boarded the _Abuelo_ and settled themselves in the guests' quarters above deck. Holmes shuffled from one end of the boat to the other, his spine bowed forward with the weight of his thoughts. There could be no way that Watson was right. He was not mistaken. The bizarre happenstances at Bermuda were confined to a very specific shape, and that shape was a triangle. Pythagoras was pointing him there. There could be no mistaking it. And even if he were wrong—even if he were mad—what else could he do? There was no other way. To wait in London would be to invite the climactic massacre to commence. But what Pythagoras wanted was not to terrify the English people with the threat of random murders and general pandemonium. There had never been a more precise killer in history, and his intention was as clear as the cursive letters Holmes has spelled out with his graphs: S.H.

Wherever Holmes went—whatever he did—Pythagoras would meet him. That was quite simply the game, and Holmes was obliged to comply with its mysterious rules.


	7. Tachyons and a German Renaissance

VII

Captain Jack Sparrow was in awe of the magnificent engineering at work below his feet. This technology was overwhelming. He ran from one end of the boat to the other, remarking over and over again at all of its impressive, novel features. "A boat!" he said, laughing. "They call this a boat!"

He had not, of course, forgotten the weighty responsibility delegated to him by the mysterious time traveler. Nevertheless, he trusted his perennial good luck to see him through the necessary details of his latest assignment. There was after all such thing as fate—a notion that still commanded a great deal of respect in his home century—and he had an inkling that all the appropriate ideas would come to him at all the appropriate moments.

In the meantime, he was convinced that he could find ample diversions in this new, refreshing epoch. This clever little boat was perhaps the first of these diversions. Francis Euler's daughter, he reckoned, would unquestionably prove to be another.

She was dressed at the height of that exotic future fashion. He studied her from a distance as she spoke with her father in hushed, earnest tones. Her tiny mouth squeezed even tighter as she formed hurried and indistinguishable words, and her brows drew close together to emphasize her displeasure. Euler, for his part, remained impassive. His posture was entirely unaffected, nor did he seem interested in her entreaties. Jack approached them.

"Does the lady find something to her disliking?" he asked, his eyes trained on her glowing, feisty eyes.

"Mr. Sparrow," said Euler. "Vhee are perfectly content vif zee accommodations. You vill find—I'm sure—zat our German vigor and resolve is certainly equal to any hardship vhee may encounter on zee sea. Even zose members of zee fairer sex—if zhey are members of our proud and sturdy race—prove zemselves to be uncommonly resilient in zee face of kvite staggering circumstances! Hypatia, Mr. Sparrow—she vill prove no exception!"

Hypatia Euler smirked at him. In a moment, she stood up and wandered away. Jack, however, found himself engaged in a completely unsolicited conversation with her father. The old man began once again to tap his cane against the ground, satisfied by the emphasis its heavy thuds afforded his encomium of Germany.

"Vhee Germans, Herr Sparrow, have a remarkable task zhat vhee must promptly undertake. You see, vhee vur not long ago a nation reduced to zhee most unflattering disorder. It is only recently zhat vhee have unified ourselves, and to us has fallen zhee task of inciting in zhis century—or in zhee century zhat follows it—a new Renaissance! Zhis vorld zhat vhee endeavor to summon up from fate is a vorld zhat reflects zhose kvalities zhat are intrinsically German—zhis beauty (my Hypatia) and strength, a certain physical and mental vigor, and above all zhee power to engage intellectually vif a reality zhat to previous generations has invariably remained inaccessible. Vhen vhee have successfully incurred zhis German Renaissance, Herr Sparrow, zhere is nothing zhat shall remain inaccessible to humanity. Do you understand vhat is meant by humanism?"

"Sir, I don't even understand what is meant by Germany." For Jack, after all, there was Spain and there was England—power was a navy! It was a colony or two abroad—and Germany was merely a backwards relic of the Holy Roman Empire. He studied Francis Euler with a combination of amusement and disgust.

"My Hypatia—I expect such great dings from her! So much depends on zhis, Mr. Sparrow: on zhis very young girl, and on zhis very mission zhat you are leading! You see, zhis expedition—vhich to you surely seems by all accounts unremarkable—is in reality zhee most portentous event of zhee millennium. Vhee, Mr. Sparrow—zhat is, my Hypatia and I—are reinventing zhee wheel! Vhee vill revolutionize zhee manner in vhich man travels. Zhee manner in vhich he relates to other men!"

Jack nodded thoughtfully. This was news. He hadn't anticipated that procuring valuable details would require so little effort or investigation. Francis Euler was volunteering enough information to pacify the Time Traveler for weeks. The more he discovered, the more favorable his outcome would prove to be.

"How interesting! Mr. Euler—if you don't find my asking too presumptuous—might you be referring to time travel? You see, I'm only asking because I've recently encountered something quite fantastic, and I wonder if it has anything to do with these portentous events to which you've just now alluded…"

Euler's eyes swelled and his thin, wrinkled mouth gaped in evident consternation. The corners of his eyes crinkled as his face broke into an ecstatic grin. He clapped Jack Sparrow over the shoulder and leaned close to his ear.

"My boy! Have you ever heard of a Tachyon?"

"Father!"

There, beside them, was Hypatia. Her bright eyes bore into Jack and it was not difficult for him to identify her expression of disbelief and suspicion. She seized her father by the forearm and glared at him meaningfully.

"Oh my, yes, Hypatia, you are right."

"And _you_," she whispered, "are just a crazy, eccentric old man. Mr. Sparrow, please forgive my father. He is a storyteller—a writer—and this is his craft. This very trip is, for him, a means of conducting literary research; and I'm afraid that without your consent, he seems to have recruited you as a probationary audience member. Mr. Sparrow, I implore you not to allow him to take advantage of you this way. His stories at first may seem intriguing, but put simply, they never end! It's a siren's call! You'll find yourself overwhelmed with his artifice—he's a talented man—but don't allow yourself to conceive of his fictions in terms of reality. These things he says—this common trope of his of time travel and imaginary particles—it's all entirely impossible! Fiction, Mr. Sparrow. Be very, very careful of this dear, frightfully odd old man."

Jack Sparrow nodded, nonplussed. He stared deeply into Hypatia's eyes, but her face betrayed no indication of her perceptions or impressions. There was a steely, formidable barrier woven across the otherwise beautiful attributes of her mien, but Jack was unsatisfied with the cursory appraisal she allowed him. No sooner had he begun to study her than she excused herself and once again vanished below deck. He considered following her. There was quite obviously something that Hypatia and Euler knew that he was not yet privileged enough to discover. But he had no doubt that he would eventually succeed in ingratiating himself with enough finesse to prevail upon even Hypatia, and she would promptly take him into her most guarded confidences.

Euler had resumed tapping his cane against the deck with a distant, thoughtful expression on his creased and jaundiced face. Jack quickly excused himself and wandered to the stairwell leading below deck.

He moved quietly along the narrow corridor. As he passed his contractor's room, he paused to identify the voices of those speaking inside. Unsurprisingly, Watson turned out to be the primary orator. But some desperate, eager tone in his voice captured Jack's attention. He leaned close to the door and distinguished the clipped English syllables from the permanent growling of the steam engine and the familiar noises of the sea.

"Francis Euler, Holmes!" he exclaimed.

Then Holmes was his only auditor?

"Francis Euler—one of the most distinguished German expatriates in England today!"

"I'm sure that I don't know who he is, Watson, or I would have solved this riddle by now. You mean it isn't his daughter you're after? His money?"

"The Eulers, I'm sure, are in no way poverty-stricken; but these aren't people who attract attention merely for their financial resources. I'm referring to the family's international reputation for intellectual prestige. Can't you think of any Euler, Holmes? Any prominent Euler?"

Jack heard the sound of shuffling feet. _More pacing_, he thought, smiling to himself as he imagined Sherlock Holmes rising to wander from one end of the narrow quarters to the other, pinching the bridge of his nose, and perhaps even mumbling under his breath.

"Don't tell me!" he said. "Euler…a prominent Euler…and you're sure that he's German?"

"Yes," said Watson. "By way of Switzerland."

That, apparently, provided the final and most critical clue of all. Jack listened intently.

"You don't say! By way of Switzerland—it can't be—Watson, do you know what this means?"

"That he probably also speaks French?"

"Watson, Do you mean to tell me than Mr. Francis Euler—that Hypatia Euler—is the direct descendent of Leonhard Euler …._Leonhard_ Euler…the most iconoclastic and influential mathematician of the turn of the last century?"

There was a pregnant silence. Jack leaned closer against the door.

"Do you realize, Watson, what this implies? Euler was a great number theorist, a graph theorist, a pioneer of infinitesimal calculus—in every way the most distinguished genius of his field and his era…His earlier work dealt at length with the rule of three squares and its relation to the Pythagorean theorem, Fermat's last theorem, the sums of two squares, the divergence of the sums of the reciprocals of two primes…This means…._surely_ this means…"

"Holmes, don't be absurd!"

"It's _not_ absurd, Watson. It's elementary. It's beautiful and elegant, and in every way just what I might have expected from him. It _must_ be so. I'm amazed that I didn't realize it earlier, but to look at him, how could anyone see? How could anyone have imagined Pythagoras as such a feeble and—oh! Oh, but could it even really be?—_Hypatia_. Do you realize, Watson, that we could at this very moment find ourselves on a steamboat in the company of the most calculated serial killer in all of human history? Quite literally…these calculations—and my estimation of these calculations—prove so incomparably complex; surely only the inheritor of a truly remarkable mathematical comprehension could emulate such precision and manipulate numbers and forms in such a way as to transmit these…these messages…"

"Holmes, I beg you to quit immediately. How can you even begin to suggest that Hypatia Euler—that darling and most feminine creature—could in any way be involved in those grisly murders? You honestly repulse me. If you carry on this way, I'm afraid that our partnership will not sustain the strain. I'll dissolve our friendship sooner than I'll allow you to make any such unfounded accusations."

"Accusations? Of course I would do nothing of the sort. Why would I resort to something so vulgar? Why? When the plan is just unfolding…No, Watson. You'll never hear another word of it from me."

"Then you admit that you were only imagining things?"

"Grasping at straws, so to speak! Forget I said anything."

There was another long and painful silence. Jack backed away from the door and hesitantly continued to tiptoe through the corridor. What could this mean? The old man's cryptic allusions to what could only be time travel, his relationship to this deceased Swiss mathematician, his vision of a German Renaissance…perhaps most disconcerting of all, however, was this business of grisly murders. Jack rubbed his neck thoughtfully. He knew only what the Time Traveler had told him; the rest, presumably, was up to fate. He was comforted, knowing that somewhere—in some inaccessible fourth dimension—all of this had happened before, or was perhaps happening right now, or in any case was at least visible to someone—to the Time Traveler—wherever he was in space and time. Jack turned the corner, heaving a sigh of relief, and seized up at once in terror as he glanced down toward his feet. There, sprawled out over the steel planks, was the dead body of Hypatia Euler.


End file.
